John Paul Davies

​Originally from Liverpool, UK, John Paul Davies now lives in Navan, Ireland and is a member of the Poised Pen Writers (thepoisedpen.co.uk).

A Model Village (April 8, 2016) I lock myself in as the last leave, flicking coinsinto the well that sink and remain like dreamsof golden fish. Sloshed tea from the flaskruns off the back of hulked earth shroudedin Astroturf. Quicksilver for the woods.There is a storm ahead. The cows will needto lie down. Last train crawls throughits drainpipe tunnel for the same platformfaces. Fear the weather. Take them in now.The colour of their clothes, their skin,will begin to fade. Outside torchlightdark thickens. Streets demand constant attention.Rows of terraces wake like Christmas lanterns.Onto eggshell cobbles light spills in shaftsfrom the pub windows. The needle skips againinside, long gone voice stuck with a mouthfulof words it cannot get beyond. Aroundthe clusters of foam-filled tombstones, fog swellsat my ankles, wetness begins in the boots. The stormis almost upon us. Animals will be swept away. Roofswill cave in. Rats will appear from holesin the ground. Through the woods the packof dogs sears. Their backs break the still water.Flashlights crossing, over the hillsstrangers come. More than I imagined. The dayvisitors see none of this.

Three Ships (April 8, 2016)Snow compacting in time with the songas I approach the old house,words demanding my return.Furnace–smoke scars the blind sky,a slow–turning cloud in the morning refusing death,the song a refusal to never exist.

Adult tread obliterates my boyhood prints;Barney, born that summer, tests a high howl– his three–padded prints traverse mine to the river.Singing their ships, the boys keep out of viewas I circle the house which ticks like a music box,dripping with icewater; a melting of twenty–five years.

Nose against pane, I become a trick of the light,a displaced mariner from one of the three shipssomehow come ashore.My old red racer leans easily under the window,the white saddle my father heldas he ran alongside, steered then released.

Even this far from sea the shipscould be seen from my bedroom window;melding on the horizon, in and out of the mist.Breath enough to fill the mast once more,the three ships sung into existencefor as long as they were needed.

I leave the house and follow my prints to the river,where the last of the melting snowbetrays the boy’s face under ice,trapped in a one–way mirror.Red–cheeked, stalled as the three shipsbrimming in the horizon of his wet eyes.